The Keyhole makes observations about consumers, brands, ads, & marketing, through a predictive customer loyalty lens. Most marketing is ineffective to today's bionic consumer, given undifferentiated products, loss of "brandness," & hard to come by profits. Marketers talk about "engagement" but nobody seems to be doing a very good job measuring or integrating it into what they do & it shows! The Keyhole opens a dialogue on this subject & suggests real-world solutions with the marketing community.

Monday, September 26, 2016

A little more than a year ago, when Donald Trump announced
his candidacy for president, Brand Keys asked the question, “Can the Human Brand,
Donald Trump, Become Candidate Trump?”

To answer that question we conducted a
survey using our predictive loyalty and engagement metrics that have been
independently validated to correlate very, very highly with consumer behavior. And what’s more important than how Americans
vote? And on the basis of those assessments, the answer to the question turned
out to be “yes.” It seemed eminently possible to migrate this particular Human
Brand to a Presidential Candidate Brand.

And, as predictive metrics are meant to
predict, they did. And the rest, as they say, is at the very least, recent
history. Although for many voters it has seemed like forever.

On the “Human Brand” side, more than
75% of the entities Mr. Trump listed in his presidential financial disclosure
statement carried either his name or initials on lifestyle and consumer
products. But a few months ago it was announced that Mr. Trump wasn’t going to put his name on a new
chain of hotels, designed to cater to Millennials, a group where Mr. Trump has
not polled particularly well up to now.

The new chain, not as high-end as his usual
ultra-luxury properties, has apparently been designed to compete with Airbnb
and other hotel chains’ more stylish and tech-savvy brands, which have also targeted
younger consumers. Eric Danziger, Trump Hotels CEO, said the company wanted “to
reserve the name Trump only for luxury and never want to confuse customers or
owners of the difference in a four and five-star property.”

Given trends in the hotel business,
that decision made real business sense since Trump (the Human Brand) has been
generally associated with wealth, luxury, and glamour, and for some,
wretched-excess. But as Oscar Wilde noted, “Nothing succeeds as excess,” and
Mr. Trump has. Succeeded, that is. His branded products have provided an answer
for consumers who aspired to share in the lifestyle of the powerful and
influential and the rich and famous. And over the years, the Trump brand has
very successfully done precisely what a brand is designed to do. It brought
added-value to products and services that bore his name – one of the critical
obligations of 21st century brands and the ultimate acid test for a real brand.

In a study Brand Keys conducted
pre-Presidential Candidate Trump, we found that adding the Trump name increased the perceived value
of products or services anywhere from 20% to 37%.

That’s enviable by any category standards, but recent events have raised a new
question: How was Presidential Candidate Brand Trump affecting Trump the Human
Brand? We already knew that his
observations regarding minorities resulted in Macy’s dropping his line and
other partners withdrawing from deals. So to provide some research insights
into how Mr. Trump’s highly publicized, often-contentious, and never-boring transition
from brand to candidate has affected the Human Brand, we conducted another
survey to measure those effects.

Of the seven categories previously examined,
Presidential Brand Trump increased added-value in the two categories with which
Mr. Trump is currently most associated: TV/Entertainment and Country Clubs and
Golf Courses. Added value regarding Real Estate has remained high but unchanged
from two years ago.

But in more consumer-marketplace
related products like shirts, ties, suits, and jewelry, Trump the Human Brand’s
added-value has been significantly degraded. All changes – up and down – are significant at the 95%
confidence level, although, as noted, twice the number of categories are down
as they are up!

CategoryHumanPresidential Added-Value

BrandBrandDifferentialTV/Entertainment:37%43%+ 6%

Country/Golf Clubs:35%40%+ 5%

Real Estate: 30%30%Unchanged

Dress Shirts: 30%22%-
8%

Ties: 29%23%- 6%

Suits: 25%19%- 6%

Watches: 20%11%- 9%

It was P.T. Barnum who first said,
"I don't care what the newspapers
say about me as long as they spell my name right," but he was
running an exhibition hall and not a presidential campaign.

Mr. Trump’s comments regarding
immigration, Mexicans, President Obama’s birther issues (both pro and con), the attractiveness (or lack
thereof) of women, his admiration of Vladimir Putin, his Great Wall, his great
wealth, his great health, and his love (and possession) of big guns and big
hands has been – to say the least – controversial, polarizing, nasty, nastier, and
sometimes just downright comedic for a presidential campaign.

It’s been said, “to err is human, to
forgive divine.” But given the results of our most recent survey, it turns out
that Human Brands apparently don’t always have that option and 21st century
customers/voters aren’t as magnanimous as they used to be in simpler times!

But when it comes to the actual
election, we’ll be measuring Presidential Brand Trump after the first debate
just to see where that version of Trump – and Secretary Clinton – stands in the
political arena.Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.

Monday, September 19, 2016

It may surprise consumers to realize, but it was only nine short years ago that Apple introduced the iPhone. Sure that’s nearly an eon in
tech-time, but with that introduction Apple set a very high expectation bar – as
well as A very fast pace for innovation and design ­– for all smartphones to
come.

The level Apple set became the “delight.” One that kept
users upgrading again and again for the past 8 years as well as enticing users
of competing systems to defect to Apple – even in the face of lower-priced
offerings. Every year Apple met, set, or exceeded expectations consumers had for
their Ideal smartphone. And doing that kept consumers loyal and the brand very
profitable. Quod erat deomnstrandum.

But then the competition reset category expectations. Two
years ago Samsung introduced the first water-resistant smartphone. Earlier this
year they introduced the two-camera lens system. LG introduced their version of
that camera shortly thereafter. Samsung had already developed greater screen resolution
and had extended the screen to the edge of the phone, a trick of design that
made the screen appear bigger. Last week Apple unveiled their long-awaited
iPhone 7.

Yes, it has improved battery life and a dual-lens camera.
It’s water-resistant now. They’ve removed the headphone socket from the bottom
of the phone, which now requires wireless AirPod headphones (or a converter to
use your traditional headset). Apple still has its integrated, easy-to-use
hardware/software, but that’s not new. Neither is their legendary customer
support infrastructure.

But questions regarding loyalty and customer defection
potential abound. What of the organic design that created the original category
expectations and that currently drive nearly 40% of the loyalty in the
category? How likely is the “new” iPhone to engage customers – both current and
competitive? Will smartphone users of all stripes find enough brand value in
Apple’s new version? And if not, will current iPhone users hold on to their existing
devices longer? Oh, and how long before I lose my AirPods?

To provide some insights into those questions, Brand Keys
measured the iPhone 7 (as introduced by Apple) using our predictive engagement
and loyalty metrics to compare the Apple 7 to earlier Apple loyalty measures
collected back in January of this year.

Back then Apple rated an overall 89% (versus a category
Ideal configured at 100%), which ranked Apple #1 but just 1% higher than
Samsung. Back then Apple was seen by customers to best meet their very high
expectations for the single category loyalty driver having to do with “Cameras,
Apps, and Multi-Media.” They also did very well when it came to “Brand Value
and Customer Support,” but did less well when it came to “Organic Design” and
“Personal Connectivity,” the two most-important loyalty drivers in the Smartphone
category.

So optimally, the new iPhone 7 would raise the brand’s ability
to better meet the expectations consumers held for each of the four category
loyalty drivers, thus increasing brand engagement, independently validated to
correlate very highly with positive consumer behavior in the marketplace. QED.

Regrettably, the new assessments do not bear out that
objective.

When it came to “Organic Design,” the Apple iPhone 7 was
rated significantly lower than January assessments, and only directionally
higher for “Personal Connectivity.” Thus are the vagaries of customer
expectations, and the removal of traditional headsets, one can only suppose. There
was no change when it came to “Brand Value and Customer Support,” which one
might have guessed. They’re Apple, after all.

The only significant increase was in the driver “Cameras,
Apps, and Multi-Media,” and all together, looking at Apple’s 4-driver weighted
average versus the Ideal of 100%, actually resulted in a decrease of 2% for the
Apple brand, or an overall loyalty and engagement rating of 87%. To paraphrase
Alexander Pope, “Hope springs eternal for all tech brands,” but it’s not
necessarily accorded.

And sure, Apple can count on the Innovators, the (Very)
Early Adopters, and the Apple Passionistas to line up for the 7, although we
think it’s fair to point out they only account for about 17% of the population.
Additionally, Apple, which has provided opening weekend sates data for the past
8 years, has decided it’s not going to do that this year. Or any more. They
rationalize that decision citing initial sales aren’t the best indicator
(anymore?). Oh, and estimates for iPhone sales in the coming year are modest at
best.

None of this comes a surprise to us. In our annual survey of
the most innovative brands in America this past July, Apple slipped from the #1
spot to #4. Yikes! It would appear that what was once seen to be iconic is now viewed
as generic. And a brand that once delighted now battles to meet consumer
expectations.

And build
customer loyalty, too. QED.Find out more about what makes customer loyalty happen and how Brand Keys metrics is able to predict future consumer behavior: brandkeys.com. Visit our YouTube channel to learn more about Brand Keys methodology, applications and case studies.

Monday, September 12, 2016

The NFL season always kicks off with teams planning
for an Ideal season leading to Super Bowl. This year, the annual kickoff game
felt familiar, with
the Carolina Panthers opening the season in Denver looking for a chance to
bounce back from last year’s Super Bowl loss, the first time a Super Bowl rematch
kicked off an NFL season, but the 24th time Brand Keys has
announced the results of its annual Brand Keys 2016 Sports Fan Loyalty
Index, this round focusing on the NFL.

Appearing in the
Super Bowl is every team’s Ideal outcome. Fans also have an “ideal” in mind –
the Ideal team. Fans see their ideal team as the one that better meets their
very high expectations. Teams that can, always win the “Loyalty Bowl.”
There’s no trophy, but it comes with something more important – emotionally
engaged fans, increased game viewership, and increased purchases of licensed
merchandise.

Here are the
2016 - 2017 season NFL teams that scored when it comes to fan loyalty, and those
that didn’t. For comparative purposes, #’s in parentheses are team’s rankings
for last season:

Top 5

1.New
England Patriots (#1)

2.Denver
Broncos (#3)

3.Green
Bay Packers (#2)

4.Seattle
Seahawks (#3)

5.San
Francisco 49ers (#6)

Bottom 5

32. Cleveland Browns (#30)

31. Jacksonville Jaguars (#31)

30. Oakland Raiders (#32)

29. Washington Redskins (#29)

28. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (#28)

Brand Keys’ Sports
Fan Loyalty Index was designed to help professional sports team management
identify precise fan loyalty rankings in their home and national markets with
insights that enable the league and team to identify areas – particularly
emotional ones – that could use some strategic brand defense.

Those insights
includes values beyond win-loss ratios, and provides an apples-to-apples
comparison of the intensity with which fans within a team’s home market support
the home team versus corresponding values for the fans of the other teams or
leagues in the same market.Winning is great, but there are three other
powerful and emotionally-based factors that need to be taken into account when
it comes to fan loyalty. Percentages next to each indicate the contribution
they currently make to fan loyalty and engagement:

History and
Tradition (30%):

Is the game
and the team part of fans’ and community rituals, institutions, and beliefs?

Fan Bonding
(29%):

Are players
particularly respected and admired?

Pure
Entertainment (21%):

How well a
team does, wins, losses sure. But even more importantly than win-loss ratios, how
entertaining is their play? On-the-field aggressive play is an
acceptable component of this loyalty driver.

Authenticity
(20%):

How well they
play as a team, both offense and defense. New managers, as they’re seen to be
responsible for the genuineness and credibility of their team, can also help
lift this driver. So can a new stadium.

Ultimately you
need to know what fans really expect to do that – beyond a winning season
because some people think football is a matter of life and death. Depending on
your level of fan loyalty, sometimes it can get much more serious than that.

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About Us

Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys, is a sought-after speaker and global thought leader on engagement and loyalty. He has pioneered work in these areas, creating the Customer Loyalty Engagement Index and the Sports Fan Loyalty Index. New York University’s communication school has declared Dr. Passikoff “the most-quoted brand consultant in the United States.”